Spinoza’s Political Philosophy

At least in anglophone countries, Spinoza’s reputation as a
political thinker is eclipsed by his reputation as a rationalist
metaphysician. Nevertheless, Spinoza was a penetrating political
theorist whose writings have enduring significance. In his two
political treatises, Spinoza advances a number of forceful and original
arguments in defense of democratic governance, freedom of thought and
expression, and the subordination of religion to the state. On the
basis of his naturalistic metaphysics, Spinoza also offers trenchant
criticisms of ordinary conceptions of right and duty. And his account
of civil organization stands as an important contribution to the development of constitutionalism and the rule of law.

1. Historical Background

In order to situate Spinoza’s political writings, I will
provide a brief overview of the theologico-political context of the
United Provinces, followed by a sketch of intellectual background to
these works.

1.1 Theological and Political Background

Despite being perhaps the most tolerant country in early-modern
Europe—a sanctuary for free thinkers and members of religious
minorities—the United Provinces were riven by religious conflict,
as the Dutch sought to establish their identity after gaining
independence from Spain. The confessional rifts of the seventeenth
century were certainly an important part of context in which Spinoza
composed his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [hereafter:
TTP].

The early part of the seventeenth century was marked by a religious
schism that rapidly took on political significance. In 1610,
forty-four followers of liberal theologian Jacobus
Arminius—referred to as Arminians—wrote a formal
“Remonstrance,” which articulated the ways in which they
deviated from orthodox Calvinism, particularly with respect to
the issues of self-determination and grace. The Arminians, or
Remonstrants, defended religious toleration on the grounds that faith
is expressed in the conscience of the individual, and so is not subject to the
coercive power of the state. The doctrinal and political views of the
Remonstrants were opposed by the conservative Gomarists (followers of
Franciscus Gomarus), or Counter-Remonstrants. For a little over a
decade (roughly 1607–1618), the dispute raged on, expanding outward
from Holland and Utrecht. Finally, in 1618, a national synod convened
(the Synod of Dort) to define the public faith more clearly. The
fallout from the Synod of Dort was disastrous for the tolerant
Arminians. The Advocate of the States of Holland, Johan
Oldenbarnevelt, who staunchly defended the Remonstrants, was put to
death. And Arminians throughout the country were purged from town
councils and universities (Israel 1995, 452ff).

The second half of the century witnessed its own major
theologico-political dispute in the United Provinces. At the center,
once again, were two theologians: Johannes Cocceius, a liberal theology
professor at Leiden, and Gisbertus Voetius, Dean of the University of
Utrecht. Disputes between Cocceian and Voetians began over abstruse
theological matters, but developed into a larger political and cultural
affair. The Voetians led the assault on the Cartesian philosophy being
taught in the universities. They thought that the new science advocated
by Descartes, with its mechanistic view of the material world, posed a
threat to Christianity in a variety of ways (Nadler 1999, 151–2 and
308–310). Spinoza’s philosophy was reviled not only by the
Voetians, but also by moderate Cocceian-Cartesians, who sought to
distance themselves from radicals.

Spinoza was no stranger to religious persecution. As is well known,
he was himself excommunicated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam in
1656. While Spinoza apparently endured the excommunication with
characteristic equanimity, fellow Dutch apostate Jew, Uriel da Costa,
was unable to bear the indignity of excommunication from the Amsterdam
Jewish community. In 1640—when Spinoza was only eight years
old—da Costa, who had denied the immortality of the soul and
challenged the status of the Torah as divine revelation, took his own
life.

Da Costa’s suicide surely made a lasting impression on
Spinoza, but it did not affect him as personally as did the treatment
of his friend Adriaan Koerbagh at the hands of Dutch authorities in the
years leading up to the publication of the TTP. In 1668 Koerbagh
published two treatises that provoked the wrath of the Calvinist
clergy. In the more scandalous of the two—Een Bloemhof van
allerley lieflijkheyd (A Flower Garden of all Kinds of
Loveliness)—Koerbagh ridiculed a number of traditional religious
doctrines and practices, and, in the process, articulated his own
religious and metaphysical views. Among the shocking views that he
advanced were that Jesus is not divine, that God is identical with
nature, that everything is necessitated by the laws of nature (the laws
of God), and that miracles are impossible. These are all positions that
Spinoza consistently endorsed. However, while Spinoza was famously
cautious, Koerbagh was not, publishing the works in Dutch (thereby
making them accessible to the general literate public) under his own
name. Consequently, Koerbagh was tried and sentenced on charges of
blasphemy. During his subsequent imprisonment under squalid conditions
Koerbagh became ill. He died soon thereafter (in 1669). It is
generally supposed that it was Koerbagh’s imprisonment and death
above all else that precipitated the publication of the TTP (Nadler
1999, 170).

Liberal republicans were dealt a major blow in
1672. In this so-called disaster year (rampjaar), French
troops, under the command of Louis XIV, invaded the United Provinces,
capturing a number of Dutch cities (Nadler 1999, 305). Grand
Pensionary (chief statesman and legal advisor) Johan de Witt
shouldered much of the blame for this military embarrassment. De Witt
was the leader of the States of Holland for much of the republican
period that followed the death of Stadholder (a quasi-monarchical
position held by the House of Orange) William II in 1650. After the
French invasion, the stadholdership was reinstituted in the person of
William III, and De Witt was forced to resign. Shortly afterward he
and his brother, Cornelis, were brutally killed by a zealous mob. This incident
evoked uncommon anger in Spinoza, who was an admirer of de Witt and
the republican ideals for which he stood. According to one famous
account, Spinoza had to be restrained by his landlord from taking a
sign reading ultimi barbarorum [“ultimate of
barbarians”] to the site of the massacre (Freudenthal 1899,
201). Spinoza’s Tractatus Politicus was composed in the
aftermath of, and perhaps prompted by, the events of 1672.

1.2 Intellectual Background

Spinoza’s political thought draws from a number of sources,
both classical and modern. As one commentator puts it, “Spinoza
formed new conclusions from facts and concepts borrowed from
others” (Haitsma Mulier 1980, 170). It is worth briefly
considering some of the sources of the “facts and concepts”
that he inherits.

At some point in the mid-1650’s (around the time of his
cherem, or excommunication) Spinoza began studying Latin with
Franciscus Van den Enden. Van den Enden was an ex-Jesuit and radical
egalitarian with revolutionary tendencies. He was put to death in 1674
after having been found guilty of conspiring to depose Louis XIV in
order to establish a free republic in Normandy. Van dan Enden was an
anti-clerical democrat who appears to have profoundly influenced
Spinoza. One commentator has gone so far as to call Van den Enden
“the genius behind Spinoza,” claiming that Van den
Enden’s writings “contain a political theory which is in
fact the same as the one worked out by Spinoza” (Klever 1996,
26). Whether or not this assessment is fair, it is clear that
Spinoza’s thinking was nourished through his association with Van
den Enden and the larger radical Cartesian circle in Amsterdam (Nyden-Bullock 2007).

Hobbes’ influence on Spinoza is unmistakable. We know that
Spinoza read De Cive carefully and that it was among his
possessions when he died in 1677. He might also have read
Leviathan, which appeared in Latin in 1668, as Spinoza was
completing the TTP (Sacksteder
1980). I will discuss Spinoza’s work in relationship to
Hobbes’ in some detail below (sections 2.1 and 2.2, below). Here
I want to mention the impact of Dutch Hobbesians on Spinoza. Hobbesian
thought was introduced into Dutch political discourse by Lambert van
Velthuysen, an anti-clerical, liberal physician (Tuck 1979; Blom 1995).
Velthuysen’s Dissertatio is an unabashed defense of
Hobbes’ thought, in which the duty to preserve oneself is given
pride of place (esp. Sect. XIII). Spinoza read and admired Velthuysen
as a “man of exceptional sincerity of mind,” and was thus
disconcerted when Velthuysen denounced the TTP as the work of
a dangerous atheist (Epistles 42 and 43).

Aside from Velthuysen, the other primary Dutch conduits for
Hobbesian thought prior to Spinoza were the De la Court brothers (Petry
1984; Kossmann 2000). Most of the De la Courts’ writings were
published by Pieter De la Court after the death of his brother Johan in
1660. However, because it remains unclear how much Pieter added and how
much he took credit for the work his studious younger brother, I will refer to
these authors of these writings simply as the De la Courts, so as to
avoid attribution problems. The De la Courts were ardent republicans
who maintained good relations with Johan De Witt. Indeed, De Witt is
thought to have written two chapters in the second edition of their
book Interest van Holland (see Petry 1984, 152). The De la
Courts adopted the basic features of Hobbesian anthropology, but
eschewed juridical concepts like “right” and
“contract” (see Malcolm 1991, 548), opting to analyze the
civil condition in terms of the competing interests of participants.
According to them, the aim of the state is to ensure that the interests
of rulers are tied to the interests of the ruled, which is possible
only if one adopts a series of institutional measures, such as the use
of blind balloting, the removal of hereditary posts, and the rotation
of offices. Republics, they argued, will be marked by greater checks
against self-interested legislation than monarchies (see Blom 1993).
Spinoza evidently studied these works carefully; his institutional
recommendations in the Tractatus Politicus [hereafter: TP]
reflect his debt to the De la Courts (Petry 1984; Haitsma Mulier
1980).

It was likely the writings of the De la Courts that impressed upon
Spinoza the perspicacity of Niccolo Machiavelli. The notion of
balancing the interests of competing parties was ultimately derived
from Machiavelli (see Haitsma Mulier 1993, 254–255). Spinoza’s
Political Treatise is shot through with Machiavellian insights
and recommendations. Right at the outset of the work, Spinoza parrots
Machiavelli’s critique of utopian theorizing, elevating statesmen
over philosophers, since only the latter begin with a realistic
conception of human psychology (TP 1/1; cf. Machiavelli,
The Prince I.15). Machiavellian realism pervades Spinoza’s
political writings, playing a particularly significant role in the
constitutional theorizing of the TP. Spinoza, like Machiavelli,
understood that prescriptions for improving the governance of a state
can be offered only after one has a proper diagnosis of the problems
and a proper grasp of human nature (see Steinberg 2018a).

2. Basic Features of Spinoza’s Political Philosophy

Three of the most striking and important claims of Spinoza’s
Ethics are that (1) all things come to exist and act
necessarily from the laws of God’s nature (e.g., EIP29
and EIP33), (2) nature does not act on account of some end or
purpose (EI Appendix), and (3) nature is everywhere and always
the same (EIII Preface). Collectively, these three claims
entail that human behavior, like the behavior of everything else, is
fully necessitated by, and explicable through, the immutable—and
non-providential—laws of God or Nature. This forms a significant
part of the metaphysical backdrop against which Spinoza develops his
political theory. For the sake of simplicity, I will call the view that
is constituted by these three theses Spinoza’s naturalism. This
naturalism led him to adopt bold views about the source and
status of rights, obligations, and laws that distinguished his work from that of
other seventeenth-century political theorists.

Spinoza’s naturalism excludes the possibility of a transcendent God. Those
who believe in a transcendent God “imagine that there are two
powers, distinct from each other, the power of God and the power of
natural things…. they imagine the power of God to be like the
authority of royal majesty, and the power of nature to be like a force
and impetus” (TTP 6/81). Of course, on Spinoza’s account, God is
not a transcendent legislator, God is nature itself. Consequently, all accounts of right that are rooted in God’s legislating will are specious. This is a direct rebuke not only of defenders of
the divine right of kings, but also of most accounts of natural rights
as entitlements that were embraced by many seventeenth-century
theorists.

Moreover, this naturalism also rules out the possibility of a normative order of things, or a way that
things should be, distinct from the actual order of
things. This undermines the teleological assumptions that form the
basis of natural law theory, whether Thomistic or Protestant. Even
those who wished to separate natural law from theology (e.g.,
Pufendorf), and those who de-emphasized the role of God’s
will—as Grotius does in his famous etiam si daremus
passage—still supposed that there is a way that things ought to
be, a normative natural order that can be decoupled from the actual
order of things. According to this view, humans act contrary to nature
when they act contrary to the prescriptions of right reason. Spinoza
attacks this view, according to which “the ignorant violate the
order of nature rather than conform to it; they think of men in nature
as a state within a state [imperium in imperio]” (TP
2/6). The phrase “imperium in imperio” famously
appears also in the preface to Ethics III, where Spinoza is
characterizing the non-naturalist view that he opposes. In both of
these passages, Spinoza criticizes the assumption that man is governed
by his own set of rational, normative laws, rather than the laws that
govern the rest of nature. It is precisely this position that Spinoza
undercuts when he writes in the Ethics that “the laws
and rules of Nature…are always and everywhere the same”
(EIII preface) and in the TP that “whether man
is led by reason or solely by desire, he does nothing that is not in
accordance with the laws and rules of nature” (TP 2/5).

In short, by adopting the view that nature is univocal and that man is
governed by the same laws as everything else in nature, Spinoza
rejects the natural law tradition (Curley 1991; A. Garrett 2003; for
contrasting views, see Kisner 2010 and Miller 2012). And even if
Spinoza’s naturalism is viewed as part of a larger naturalistic trend
in Dutch political thought (Blom 1995), his disavowal of normative
conceptions of nature and rejection of teleology indicates a clear
break with tradition. To appreciate the depth and significance of
Spinoza’s naturalism, it will be helpful to compare his views on
natural right and obligation to Hobbes’.

2.1 Hobbes and Spinoza on the Right of Nature

One of the most notorious features of Spinoza’s political
thought is his account of natural right. He introduces this concept in
TTP 16, where he boldly writes:

By the right and order of nature I merely mean the rules determining
the nature of each individual thing by which we conceive it is
determined naturally to exist and to behave in a certain way. For
example fish are determined by nature to swim and big fish to eat
little ones, and therefore it is by sovereign natural right that fish
have possession of the water and that big fish eat small fish. For it
is certain that nature, considered wholly in itself, has a sovereign
right to do everything that it can do, i.e., the right of nature
extends as far as its power extends…since the universal power
of the whole of nature is nothing but the power of all individual
things together, it follows that each individual thing has the
sovereign right to do everything that it can do, or the right of each
thing extends so far as its determined power extends. (TTP 16, 195;
cf. TP 2/4).

In claiming that the right of nature is coextensive with the power
of nature and that this applies
mutatis mutandis to the individuals in nature, Spinoza is
simply rejecting non-naturalism, rather than making a positive
normative claim. So although Spinoza is often seen as subscribing to
the view that “might makes right” (see Barbone and Rice
2000, 19; McShea 1968, 139), this is misleading if it is
taken as a normative claim. In fact, I take it that the coextensivity thesis is not to be
understood as offering a new normative standard; rather, it is
intended as a denial of any transcendental standard of justice (see
Curley 1996, 322; Balibar 1998, 59). To say that something is done by
right in Spinoza’s sense is just to say that there is nothing in
virtue of which that action can be judged impermissible. So, even if
Spinoza’s account implies that Cortés conquered the Aztecs by
right, it does not follow that it was necessarily the right, or
proper, thing to do (see TP 5/1; see section 2.3).

Spinoza’s brazen denial of natural proscriptions on what one
can do roused the ire of early readers (e.g., Pufendorf 1934, 159). Of
course, Thomas Hobbes, Spinoza’s great predecessor, had made a
similar claim. Indeed, Spinoza’s account of natural right is
often taken as evidence that he is a Hobbesian. Hobbes’ account
of natural right has been the subject of much interpretative dispute,
in part because it seems to undergo a shift between his early political
writings and Leviathan. In De Cive Hobbes defines
right as “the liberty each man has of using his natural faculties
in accordance with right reason” (1.7). In other words, natural
right is the liberty to do anything consistent with the natural law
(ibid. 2.1). This includes the right to do anything that one judges to
be necessary for one’s preservation (1.8–1.9). Hobbes adds one
proviso here, which might be called the “sincerity clause,”
namely that one violates the law of nature, or acts without right, when
one acts in a way that one does not sincerely believe contributes to
one’s preservation (1.10n). And later Hobbes suggests that
because “drunkenness and cruelty” cannot sincerely be
thought to contribute to self-preservation, drunken and cruel actions
are not performed by right, even in the state of nature (ibid., 3.27).
In short, as A. G. Wernham puts it, on Hobbes’ view, man’s
natural right “covers only some of his actions” (Wernham
1958, 14). Specifically, it covers those actions that are not contrary
to the law of nature.

In Leviathan, however, Hobbes seems to advance an account
of natural right that is apparently not bound by such normative
constraints (Ch. 14). But while it may seem that in the later work
Hobbes strips the concept of natural right of all normative content,
even the view expressed in Leviathan may be seen to be at odds
with a thoroughgoing naturalism. To see this, consider Spinoza’s
reply to his friend to Jarig Jelles, when asked what sets his views
apart from Hobbes’:

With regard to political theory, the difference between Hobbes and
myself, which is the subject of your inquiry, consists in this, that I
always preserve the natural right in its entirety [ego naturale jus
semper sartum tectum conservo], and I hold that the sovereign
power in a State has right over a subject only in proportion to the
excess of its power over that of a subject (Epistle 50).

What Spinoza is criticizing here is the Hobbesian view of contracts
(covenants) or the transference of one’s natural right. The
transferability or alienability of one’s natural right to judge
how to defend oneself serves as the foundation of Hobbes’
political theory; it allows him to explain the formation of the
commonwealth and the legitimacy of the sovereign. In Spinoza’s
view, however, Hobbes violates naturalism here. By conceiving of
one’s natural right as something like an entitlement that can be
transferred, which in turn leads him to drive a wedge between right and
power in the commonwealth, Hobbes never fully rids his account of the
vestiges of the juridical tradition that Spinoza sought to
overturn.

2.2 Hobbes and Spinoza on Obligation

The difference between Hobbes and Spinoza on right bears directly on
their distinct accounts of obligation. Hobbes thinks that we incur
binding obligations when we make pledges under the appropriate
conditions. By contrast, Spinoza maintains that “the validity of
an agreement rests on its utility, without which the agreement
automatically becomes null and void” (TTP 16/182; cf. TP
2/12). To demand otherwise would be absurd, since men are bound by
nature to choose what appears to be the greater good or lesser
evil. We are bound by nature to act on our strongest interest and
cannot be obligated by previous agreements to break this inviolable
psychological law of nature.

By adhering to a strict naturalism about right and obligation and
maintaining that “the sovereign power in a State has right over a
subject only in proportion to the excess of its power over that of a
subject” (Epistle 50), Spinoza, unlike Hobbes, places the burden
of political stability on the sovereign rather than the subject (see
Wernham 1958, 27). The commonwealth must be structured so as to promote
compliance; when there is excessive vice or non-compliance, the blame
must be “laid at the door of the commonwealth” (TP 5/3).
So, whereas Hobbes argues that the sovereign is always vested with
nearly absolute legislative authority, Spinoza claims that “since
the right of a commonwealth is determined by the collective power of a
people, the greater the number of subjects who are given cause by a
commonwealth to join in conspiracy against it, the more must its power
and right be diminished” (TP 3/9). If a sovereign is to maintain
its right, it must legislate wisely, so as not to incite insurrection.
So while Spinoza does not accord to the people a proper right of
revolution, he proposes a naturalistic equivalent, since the right of
the state is essentially constituted, and limited, by the power of the
people (TP 2/17) (see Sharp 2013).

Thus, when Spinoza points to the differences between his view of
natural right and Hobbes’ in his letter to Jelles, differences
that might appear negligible to the casual reader, he is identifying a
significant distinction (see Wernham 1958, 35). Spinoza’s
thoroughgoing naturalism leads him to reject the sharp distinction that
Hobbes draws between civil state—the product of
artifice—and the state of nature, along with the concomitant
conception of obligation that arises with the inception of the
commonwealth. But given his naturalism and repudiation of rights and
obligations as traditionally understood, one might be left wondering
how or whether Spinoza could offer a normative political theory at
all.

2.3 Spinoza and Normativity

As Edwin Curley rightly points out, to deny that there is a transcendental
standard of justice is not to deny that there is any normative standard
by which we can evaluate action (Curley 1996). Even if one can act
irrationally without violating nature that does not mean that all of
one’s actions have the same normative status. As Spinoza puts it,
“it is one thing, I say, to defend oneself, to preserve oneself,
to give judgment, etc., by right, another thing to defend and preserve
oneself in the best way and to give the best judgment” (TP 5/1).
The goodness of an action is to be judged in relation to whether the
action aids one’s striving to preserve and augment one’s power (see
EIVP18S; TP 2/8; TTP 16/181). The striving to preserve and
augment one’s power, which constitutes one’s actual essence
(EIIIP7), provides a standard for moral judgments: things are
good or bad to the extent that they aid or diminish one’s power of
acting (Curley 1973). And just as the individual ought to do those
things that maximize his or her own power or welfare, Spinoza takes it
as axiomatic that the state ought to do those things that maximize the
power of the people as a whole (e.g., TTP 16/184).

3. The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

As indicated above, throughout the seventeenth century the United
Provinces were torn apart by disputes concerning, among other things, the
political authority of the church. Spinoza’s Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus can be seen as an intervention in this broad
dispute. The stated goals of this work were to parry charges of atheism
(Spinoza was hilariously unsuccessful in this respect), to oppose the
prejudices of the theologians, and to defend the freedom to
philosophize (Epistle 30). My exposition of the political claims of the
TTP will focus on the last two goals. Specifically, I will look at the
political significance of Spinoza’s critique of superstition and
consider his arguments for the freedom of philosophizing. This will be
followed by an analysis of the role of the social contract in the
TTP.

3.1 Countering Superstition

The TTP contains a good deal of what has come to be known as biblical
criticism. Through careful linguistic and historical exegesis Spinoza
identifies numerous textual inconsistencies, which, with some
philosophical buttressing, lead Spinoza to deny the exalted status of
prophets, the objective reality of miracles, and ultimately the divine origin of
the Pentateuch. The broad features of his critique are vital to our
understanding of Spinoza’s response to the “theologico-political
problem” (Smith 1997) that plagued the Dutch Republic. (For two
recent first-rate monographs on the TTP that situate Spinoza’s
critique of Scripture in historical context, see Nadler 2011 and James
2012)

Among the politically relevant claims that Spinoza makes in the
first fifteen chapters of the work is that Scripture does not compete
with philosophy as a source of knowledge; nor do the injunctions of
Scripture compete with the commands of civil authorities. By separating
faith from reason and making religion’s role in the public realm
subordinate to that of the state, Spinoza tries to sanitize religion of
its pernicious superstitious aspects. We may call the claim that faith is distinct
from reason the separation thesis and the claim that religious
law is dependent on and determined by civil law the single
authority thesis.

3.2 Separation Thesis

At one point Spinoza calls the task of establishing the separation
of faith from philosophy “the principal purpose of the whole
work” (TTP 14/179). And a good deal of the biblical criticism in the
TTP can be understood as paving the way for the separation thesis,
since in the earlier chapters much of what Spinoza is doing is
undermining the claim of Scripture as a source of genuine knowledge.
The value of Scripture does not lie in its mysteries or its abstruse
metaphysical content, since to the extent that it is concerned with
these matters it is—by Spinoza’s lights—utterly
confused. Rather, it lies in the simple moral truths that Scripture
contains, which encourage obedience to the state (Ch. 13). The books of
Scripture are written for an unsophisticated, uneducated audience and
convey information in a way that is suited to such an audience, in the
form of fantastical accounts and parables that appeal to the
imagination rather than the intellect. And so, Spinoza argues, although
Scripture may appear to reveal profound truths about God’s nature
and his participation in our world, its salient message is not
metaphysical, but moral: “Scripture requires nothing of men other than
obedience, and condemns not ignorance, but disobedience”
(TTP 13/173). The ethical message of loving God and loving one’s
neighbor is the backbone of all religion (Ch. 12), the whole of divine
law (TTP 14/178).

This ethical understanding of religion is reflected in the way that
Spinoza re-conceives of several crucial religious concepts. For
instance, he claims that a text is sacred to the extent that it fosters
devotion to God and charity to others (e.g., TTP 12/151) and that a
person’s piety is measured in terms of her or his commitment to
justice, charity, and obedience. Since the aim of religion is obedience
and good works, and the aim of philosophy is truth, religion and
philosophy ought not to be seen as rivals. By separating religion and
philosophy, faith and reason, Spinoza distances himself both from those
who—like Maimonides and Spinoza’s friend Ludwig
Meyer—contort Scripture to make it conform to reason and those
who claim that where Scripture
conflicts with reason it is reason that we must renounce (TTP, Ch. 15). According to
Spinoza, because reason and faith have separate domains, neither is
subservient to the other. The separation thesis has profound political
import, since by claiming that religion is not, like philosophy, a
source of knowledge, Spinoza undercuts the grounds for the theological
disputes that were the source of considerable unrest in the Dutch
Republic. The dominant message of the separation thesis is that
Scripture is not the source of metaphysical knowledge and so we ought
not to treat it as authoritative in these matters.

3.3 Single Authority Thesis

However, since Scripture does have a positive socio-political function in promoting justice and charity, one might wonder
how much authority the clergy has in public matters. Spinoza’s
response is that “authority in sacred matters belongs wholly to
the sovereign powers ” (Ch. 19, title). Like Hobbes, he
embraces the Erastian position that religious law is realized through
the will of the civil authority (TTP, Ch. 19). The crux of the single
authority thesis is this: the sovereign is the sole civil and
religious authority. Indeed, because piety consists in practicing
justice and obedience, and because there is no standard of justice
other than the will of the sovereign (TTP 19, 239ff; EIVP37S2),
“it is also the duty of the sovereign authority alone to lay
down how a person should behave with piety towards their neighbor,
that is, to determine how one is obliged to obey God” (TTP 19,
242–3). The obvious, yet important, implication of the single
authority thesis is that clerics are at best spiritual advisors with
no real claim to political power. The problem of dual allegiances
(divine and civil) is overcome, since the two authorities converge in
the form of the sovereign.

The argument against ecclesiastical power here depends upon the
supposition that there is no transcendental standard of piety. Of
course, a sovereign could delegate authority to religious
functionaries, but Spinoza cautions against this, using the case of
the Hebrews to illustrate the dangers of priestly authority. The
decisive turn that precipitated the decline of the first Hebrew state
came with the ascendance of a priestly order. On Spinoza’s account,
under Moses, civil law and religion “were one and the same
thing” (TTP 17, 213) and the Jews lived peaceably. However, when
the priests—chiefly the Levites—were given the right to
interpret divine law, “each of them began seeking glory for his
own name in religion and everything else...As a result religion
degenerated into fatal superstition” (TTP 18, 231). The message here
had clear application in the Dutch context, where, as we’ve noted,
Calvinist theocrats—who formed a menacing alliance with the
house of Orange—were increasingly wielding power to the
detriment of peace and stability (see Nadler 1999, 283–4).

Spinoza punctuates his historical analysis of the Hebrew state by
drawing four lessons about the theologico-political problem, three of
which are relevant here: (1) civil stability requires the limitation of
ecclesiastical power; (2) it is disastrous for religious
leaders to govern speculative matters; and (3) the sovereign
must remain the sole legislator. These historical observations support Spinoza’s principle of toleration, which I discuss
below.

3.4 Positive Function of Religion

Despite its potential for harm, Spinoza thinks that religion can
perform a positive social function. It can help to breed an obedient
spirit, making people pliable to civil law—in this way religion
plays a role in bolstering the state (e.g., TTP 14/168; cf. Moses’ use of
a state religion, TTP 5/66). For instance, the ceremonial laws and
practices of the Jews helped to foster and preserve cohesion among an
ignorant, nomadic populace (TTP Ch. 3 and Ch. 5). The central moral
message of religion—namely, to love one’s neighbor (e.g., TTP 14,
179)—may be understood through reason; but Scripture presents
this message in a manner that is suited to the understanding of the
masses (TTP 14, 184; see Strauss 1965, Ch. 9 and Smith 1997,
Ch. 2). Religion also seems to play a crucial role in promoting
compliance with the law. Michael Rosenthal has suggested that in
Spinoza’s scheme “transcendental beliefs” assist in overcoming free rider problems; defections from agreements and
non-compliance with the law would likely be widespread among human
beings were it not for religion (Rosenthal 1998).

The salutary function of religion is undermined when sectarianism
emerges. When groups like the Pharisees begin to regard themselves as
special, disparaging and persecuting other groups, civil order is
disrupted. In order to prevent such fissures, Spinoza puts forth a
universal or civil religion that captures the moral core of a plurality
of faiths, to which all citizens can subscribe, irrespective of what
other private beliefs they hold (TTP 14, 182–3). Like Rousseau after him,
Spinoza thought that a universal public religion could bolster civic
solidarity, channeling religious passions into social benefits.

3.5 Spinoza’s Argument for Toleration

Spinoza is often remembered for his contribution to the liberal
tradition, due, in large part, to his defense of the freedoms of
thought and speech in TTP 20. However, the tolerationism expressed in
TTP 20 appears to stand in tension with the Erastian claim of TTP 19.
How can Spinoza be a liberal about religious practice while also
defending the view that the state maintains full right over matters of
religion (TTP, Ch. 19)? There are three things worth noting here. First, unlike Locke’s tolerationism, Spinoza’s defense of
civil liberties in TTP 20 is not fundamentally a defense freedom of
worship (Israel 2001, 265–266). Rather, it is essentially a defense of
the freedom to philosophize; freedom of worship is at best an
incidental byproduct of this primary aim. Second, Spinoza
distinguishes between outward expressions of faith and one’s
inward worship of God. Sovereign authority over religious expression
concerns only the former, leaving the latter the domain of the
individual, for reasons that we will examine in a moment. Both of
these positions can be understood as lending support to the Arminian
cause against Calvinist Theocrats (Nadler 1999, 12). Finally, it
should be mentioned that Spinoza’s denial that freedoms concerning
outward religious expression must be protected points to the limited
nature of his brand of toleration. The sovereign retains full
discretion to determine which actions are acceptable and what forms of
speech are seditious. As Lewis Feuer ruefully notes, Spinoza does not
offer anything resembling Oliver Wendell Holmes’s standard of
“clear and present danger” to constrain sovereign
intervention (1987, 114).

What are Spinoza’s arguments for his, albeit limited, defense
freedoms of thought and speech? The first argument is that it is
strictly impossible to control another’s beliefs completely
(20, 250–51). Since right is coextensive with power,
lacking the power to control beliefs entails lacking the right to do
so. However, since Spinoza admits that beliefs can be influenced in
myriad ways, even if not fully controlled, this argument amounts to a
rather restricted defense of freedom of conscience.

Next, the argument shifts from considering what the sovereign
can do to what it would be practical or
prudent for a sovereign to do. Spinoza offers a battery of
pragmatic reasons in defense of non-interference. For instance, he
argues that “a state can never succeed very far in attempting to
force people to speak as the sovereign power commands” (TTP 20,
251). Men are naturally inclined to express what they believe (ibid.),
and so just as attempts to regulate beliefs fail, so do attempts to
regulate the expressions of these beliefs. Moreover, even if a state
were to regulate speech, this would only result in the erosion of good
faith [fides] on which civil associations depend, since men
would be “thinking one thing and saying something else”
(TTP 20, 255). It is thus foolish to seek to regulate all speech, even if
it is also “very dangerous” to grant unlimited freedom of
speech (TTP 20, 252).

Spinoza also argues that in general the more oppressively a sovereign
governs, the more rebellious the citizens will be, since most people
are “so constituted that there is nothing they would more
reluctantly put up with than that the opinions they belief to be true
should be outlawed” (TTP 20, 255). The source of oppression and the
resistance to it have a common root on Spinoza’s account, namely,
ambition, or the desire for others to approve of the same things that
we do (see
EIIIP29; cf. Rosenthal 2001 and 2003). Men being constituted
as they are, when differences of opinion arise—as they inevitably
do—they are inclined to foist their standard on others and to
resist others’ attempts to do the same. So, however common
attempts to regulate the beliefs, speech, and behavior of others may
be, it is politically unstable to do so. Moreover, Spinoza argues that
it is often the least wise and the most obnoxious who initiate moral
crusades, and just as it is often the wisest and most peace-loving who
are the targets of such campaigns (TTP 20, 256–58).

It is worth noting that these arguments in defense of civil liberties
are thoroughly pragmatic; they rely on psychological principles and
empirical observations to illustrate the instability and imprudence of
oppressive governance (see Steinberg 2010b). They are not principled
arguments that depend on rights or the intrinsic value of liberty,
much to the frustration of some commentators (Feuer 1987; Curley
1996).

3.6 Social Contract in the TTP

A good deal of scholarly attention has been placed on Spinoza’s
account of the social contract in the TTP. Spinoza introduces the
contract in Chapter 16, when considering how people escape the
pre-civil condition. Here he claims that “[men] had to make a
firm decision, and reach agreement, to decide everything by the sole
dictate of reason” (TTP 16, 198), which requires, as he later makes
clear, that each transfers one’s right to determine how to live and
defend himself to the sovereign (TTP 16, 199–200);
cf. EIVP37S2). He also cites the establishment of the Hebrew
state, with Moses as the absolute sovereign, as an historical example
of a social contract (TTP 19, 240). The social contract seems to confer
nearly boundless authority on the sovereign. So long as we are
rational, “we are obliged to carry out absolutely all commands
of the sovereign power, however absurd they may be” (TTP 16,
200).

However, if Spinoza really relies upon the social contract as a
source of legitimacy, several problems arise. First of all, it seems
unlikely that such a contract could ever have been formed, since the
legitimating strength of a social contract depends on farsighted
rationality that Spinoza clearly thinks most people lack (see Den Uyl
1983).

But even if such a contract were possible, a much greater problem
remains for Spinoza. How can we take seriously a legitimacy-conferring
contract without violating the naturalism that is at the core of
Spinoza’s metaphysics? What is this right that is surrendered or
transferred? And how can one really transfer one’s right, given
the coextensivity of right and power? Spinoza’s
naturalistic, utility-based account of obligation (see 2.2, above) also seems to preclude the possibility of a binding social contract.

Some commentators take these problems with Spinoza’s social
contract to be insurmountable, and for this reason they regard him as
coming to his senses when be abandons the contract in the TP (Wernham
1958, 25–27). Others have tried to reinterpret the contract in a way
that is makes it consistent with his naturalism. For instance, Barbone
and Rice distinguish between two concepts that have been rendered in
English as “power.” On the one hand there is
potentia, which is the power that is essential to the
individual (Barbone and Rice 2000, 17). This power in inalienable. What
is transferable is one’s potestas, i.e. one’s
authority (Barbone and Rice 2000, 17) or coercive power (Blom 1995,
211).

While this interpretation has the virtue of cohering with
Spinoza’s claim that he “always preserve[s] the natural
right in its entirety” (Epistle 50), since one’s right, or
potentia, always remains intact, it leaves unexplained how
potestas, which Barbone and Rice describe as a
“super-added” capacity, fits into the natural order. What
can it mean to possess, transfer, or renounce one’s
potestas? And how can transferring or revoking it result in an
obligation, given Spinoza’s utility-based account of
obligation?

Perhaps the best way to understand what it means to possess or give up one
potestas is in psychological terms. Curley suggests this when
he looks to Hobbes’ claim in Behemoth that the
“the power of the mighty hath no foundation but in the opinion
and belief of the people” (EW VI, 184, 237—cited in Curley
1996, 326) as a way of understanding Spinoza’s conception of
sovereign formation. One could also cite Hobbes’ famous claim in
Leviathan that “reputation of power is power” (Ch.
10) as an expression of the same point. These passages can be
understood as supporting the view that power is not transferred by way
of a speech act, but rather by standing in the psychological thrall of
the sovereign. Sovereignty is the product of psychological deference
rather than the formal transference of rights or titles.

Some evidence in support of this psychological interpretation comes in
TTP 17, where Spinoza claims that sovereign power or authority derives
from the will of its subjects to obey (TTP 17, 209–10; cf. TP
2/9–10). There are places in the text, however, when Spinoza
seems to imply that we have obligations to the sovereign irrespective
of our psychological or motivational state. In some of these
instances, a careful reading reveals that nothing of the sort is
implied. For instance, his claim that “we are obliged to carry
absolutely all the commands of the sovereign power, however absurd
they may be” (TTP 16, 200) is contingent on our behaving rationally
and wanting to avoid being regarded as enemies of the state. Still,
there are other places when he does imply that de facto
obedience is neither necessary nor sufficient for establishing the
legitimacy of a civil body. For instance, he claims that the sovereign
alone has right over religious matters such as interpreting Scripture,
excommunicating heretics, and making provisions for the poor (TTP 19, 239
- 40), despite the fact that the church had, in fact, been exercising
power in these matters. But this too can be reconciled with Spinoza’s
naturalism, provided that we understand that the power or authority of
clerics devolves upon them from the power or authority of the
sovereign.

4. The Tractatus Politicus

One might wonder why Spinoza, having published the TTP in 1670, spent
the last years of his life (until his death in 1677) working on a
second political treatise that covers some of the same ground as the
first. It is tempting to suppose that he must have come to reject many
of his earlier views. However, with the possible exception of his view
of the social contract (see 4.1), there is little evidence that
Spinoza came to reject any of the central claims of his earlier
treatise. Rather, the TP is distinguished from the earlier treatise
chiefly by its aims and rhetorical style. Whereas the TTP was an
occasional piece, written for an audience of liberal Christian
theologians to address the problems posed by officious Calvinist
theocrats, the TP is concerned with the general organization of the
state and was written for philosophers. In the later treatise, Spinoza
abandons what has been described as the “theological idiom of
popular persuasion” in favor of the dispassionate style of a
political scientist (Feuer 1987, 151; cf. Balibar 1998, 50).

The TP is a fitting sequel to the Ethics (Matheron 1969).
Whereas the Ethics reveals the path to individual freedom, the
TP reveals the extent to which individual freedom depends on
civil institutions (Steinberg 2018a). We should not be surprised to find Spinoza’s philosophy taking a civic turn near the end of his life. From his earliest writings, he claims that he is
concerned not just to perfect his own nature but also “to form a
society of the kind that is desirable, so that as many as possible may
attain [a flourishing life] as easily and surely as possible”
(TdIE, §14). The TP may be seen as Spinoza’s
attempt to articulate some of the conditions for the possibility of such a
society.

The work can be divided into three sections. In the first section
(roughly through Chapter 4), Spinoza discusses the metaphysical basis
of the state and the natural limits of state power. In the second
section (Chapter 5), Spinoza lays out the general aims of the state.
And in the third section (Chapter 6 to the end), Spinoza gives specific
recommendations for how various regime forms—monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy—are to be constituted so as to satisfy
the aims of the state as set out in section two.

4.1 Metaphysical Background

In the early chapters of the TP, Spinoza puts forth his naturalistic
program, beginning with the premise that the state, like everything
else, is a natural thing (res naturalis), governed by the
laws of nature (see Bartuschat 1984, 30). It is in this light that we
can appreciate Spinoza’s claim that “one should not look for the
causes and natural foundations of the state in the teachings of
reason” (1/7). It has seemed to some (e.g., Wernham 1958, 265n)
that this statement indicates a sharp break with the contractarian
conception of the state formation advanced in the TTP. This view is
supported by the fact that virtually no mention of a social contract
is made in the later treatise (Wernham 1958, 25; Matheron 1990). This
would also fit with Lewis Feuer’s suggestion that the later treatise
betrays a dimmer view of the masses, perhaps brought on by the events
of 1672 (1987, ch. 5). At the very least, this passage illustrates a
break with the ultra-rational conception of the social contract that
appears to lie behind some of the claims of the TTP.

However, Spinoza’s account of the state as the spontaneous product of
natural passions is perfectly consistent with the psychological
interpretation of the contract (§3.6, above). Indeed, he seems to
support such a view in his work when he claims that individuals are
under the right [sub potestate] of the commonwealth (3/5), regardless of whether they
obey its laws from fear or love of civic order (2/10; 3/8). They stand
under the right or power of the sovereign, because they are held (psychologically) in its sway.

But what exactly does it mean to deduce the foundations of the state
from the nature of men? In the TP Spinoza tells us that men, who are
individually weak and effectively powerless compared to the aggregated
powers of others (2/15; Cf. EIVP5dem.), come together as a
result of “some common emotion...a common hope, or common fear,
or desire to avenge some common injury” (6/1; see Matheron 1969
and 1990). The state is thus an unintended, but salutary, outcome of
the natural interplay of human passions. In this sense, the civil
condition is a natural condition. Because, on this view, stable
patterns of behavior emerge from blind interplay of the passions,
thereby overcoming coordination problems, some have regarded Spinoza’s
account as “evolutionary,” anticipating the theory of
unintended consequences found in Mandeville, Smith, and Hayek (Den Uyl
1985 and 1983). However, Spinoza says precious little about the
process of civil formation itself in the TP, making such an
interpretation deeply underdetermined, at best. While one can, like
Den Uyl (ibid.) or Matheron (1969, 1990), construct a genetic story on
the basis of Spinozistic psychology, the account that Spinoza himself
offers is quite thin.

4.2 General Aim of the State

Having established in the preceding chapters that anything that can
be done is done by right, Spinoza turns directly the question of how
the sovereign should exercise its power in Chapter Five,
noting that there is an important distinction between doing something
by right and doing it in the best way (5/1). Here his concern is just
to delineate the general aim of the state on the basis of which he can
give more fine-grained recommendations relative to regime forms (see
4.3). The fundamental aim of the state, according to Spinoza, is
“peace and security of life” [pax vitaeque
securitas] (5/2). To grasp what Spinoza means here we must try to
understand what he means by peace. Spinoza rejects Hobbes’
definition of peace as the “absence of war” (De
Cive 1, 12), calling it instead “a virtue which comes from strength
of mind” (5/4), or a “union or harmony of minds”
(6/4). It is one thing for a state to persist or to avoid the ravages
of war, it is quite another for the state to flourish. Spinoza makes
this point by way of an organic metaphor:

So when we say that the best state is one where men pass their lives
in harmony, I am speaking of human life, which is characterized not
just by the circulation of the blood and other features common to
animals, but especially by reason, the true virtue and life of the
mind. (5/5)

But if the aim of the state is peace, and peace consists in the
“harmony of minds” or the rational activity, one might
wonder how it is that the state could hope to achieve its end in light
of Spinoza’s skepticism concerning human rationality (1/5; 2/5;
6/1). How is it that the state can promote the civic virtue or
“strength of mind” [fortitudo] on which peace
depends (5/2, 5/3)? This is perhaps the central normative question of
the TP (see Steinberg 2009; Steinberg 2018a). Spinoza addresses this
question by way of offering institutional recommendations for each
regime type.

4.3 Constitutionalism and Model Regimes

To see how Spinoza provides a general response to the question of how
peace or civic agreement is promoted, we must bear in mind that the
relation of agreement comes in degrees (see Blom 1993; Steinberg
2009). Total agreement, what Blom calls “maximal
agreement,” is possible only to the extent that men are fully
rational (EIVP31–EIVP35). A society of free men would be a perfect
union (EIVP67–73). However, the free man exists only as an ideal; all
actual men are imperfectly rational. The concern of the state is to
bring it about that the actual relationships between people most
closely approximate the ideal society of free men. That is, the aim of
the state is to make irrational, selfish men as rational and virtuous
as possible. (For tension between idealist and realist features of
Spinoza’s political thought, see Armstrong 2009).

Spinoza’s solution, in broad form, is to adopt constitutional measures
and institutional procedures that channel the natural passions of men
towards the common good. The vision here is one of mechanizing reason
in much the same way the Venetian Republic is said to have
mechanized virtù (Pocock 1975, 284), a vision much
indebted to the works of the De la Courts. Civil rationality is the
product of a republican set of institutions that encourage broad
participation, public deliberation, and the adoption of a variety of
accountability-promoting mechanisms. A rationally organized state will
not only promote the common good, in so doing it will also strengthen
the civic commitment of its citizens; this is one key way in which the
state contributes to the reorientation of the affects of its citizens
and increases the level of agreement between citizens, the product of
which is harmony or peace (Steinberg 2009; Steinberg 2018a)

4.3.1 Monarchy

Given that the fundamental aim of the state is peace, the question
that Spinoza seeks to address in chapters 6 and 7 of the
PoliticalTreatise is how a monarchy is to be
organized so as to be maximally peaceful. He begins by repeating the
claim that men are largely irrational and selfish. And since the
passions of common men must be regulated, it is tempting to suppose, as
Hobbes does, that heavy-handed governance is required. But Spinoza
claims that even if a despot is able to minimize violence and dissent,
as the Turkish Sultans were (6/4), this produces only “slavery,
barbarism, and desolation,” not the sort of peace or agreement
among men that is the true end of the state. Indeed, Spinoza claims
that the more completely authority is vested in one man the worse off
everyone is, including the despot himself (6/8). This is because the
King is likely to look after his advantage alone, neglecting the
general welfare, which will ultimately result in the weakening of the
civitas. In order to overcome this condition, it is essential
for there to be constitutional checks on the behavior of the monarch.
These foundational laws are to be understood as the king’s
“permanent decrees” [aeterna decreta], expressing
his real interests, which are not to be contravened. Spinoza likens
these “decrees” to Ulysses’ order that his oarsmen
keep him bound to the mast of his ship even when he is beckoned by the
Sirens’ song (7/1). One of the central constitutional checks is
that the King deliberate with, and in some sense answer to, a large
council composed of citizens (6/15–30). Moreover, since the council
members too are likely to be selfish and venal, it is important that
their private interests are bound up with the common good (7/4; cf. 7/27–29). As
McShea puts it, a properly constituted state will be like a
“homeostatic mechanism” (1968, 109), correcting divisive or
destructive tendencies by ensuring that an individual’s interests
is always tied to the interests of others. For instance, Spinoza writes
that in a properly constituted state:

The king…whether motivated by fear of the people or by his
desire to win over the greater part of an armed populace, or whether
he is led by nobility of spirit to have regard to the public interest,
will always ratify the opinion that is supported by most votes-i.e.,
(by Section 5 of this Chapter), that is of the greater advantage to
the greater part of the state; or else he will try, if possible, to
reconcile the differing opinions submitted to him so as to gain
popularity with all (7/11).

Ultimately, a model monarchy will be a constitutional monarchy that will strongly resemble a democracy. This fits with
Matheron’s suggestion that, because state power is fundamentally
based in the power of the people, those states that deviate least from
a democracy will be most powerful (Matheron 1997). Nevertheless, the
fact that Spinoza countenanced the possibility that “a people can
preserve a considerable degree of freedom under a king” (7/31), can be
seen as a resignation to the reality of Orangism after the events of
1672 (Blom 2007; Steinberg 2008).

4.3.2 Aristocracy

Spinoza discusses two types of aristocracy and the best forms of
each. The first is a centralized aristocracy that appears to have been
modeled on the Venetian Republic (McShea 1968, 117; Haitsma Mulier
1980). The second is a decentralized aristocracy, in which sovereignty
is held by several cities. This type of aristocracy, which Spinoza
takes to be superior (9/15), is evidently modeled on the
United Provinces. While Spinoza’s recommendations vary between these
two types of aristocracy, many of the general features remain the
same. Spinoza argues, in proto-Madisonian fashion, that the council of
patricians must be sizable so as to reduce the potential for
factionalism (e.g., 8/1; 8/38). He also claims that a large council
will protect against selfish or irrational governance (8/6; 9/14). As
is the case in Spinoza’s discussion of monarchy, the emphasis here is
on finding mechanisms that balance the interests of participants and
encourage cohesion (e.g., 8/19–8/24). One important way in which
cohesion is encouraged is through the promulgation of the
“universal faith” or civil religion set out in TTP 16
(8/46).

Given that there will generally be more checks on authority and a
greater diffusion of political power in aristocracies than in
monarchies, we should not find it surprising that Spinoza claims that
aristocracies are likely to be more absolute than monarchies (8/7),
since a state is “absolute” to the extent that it
incorporates the rights of all its members and minimizes the basis for
dissent (8/3, 8/4, 8/7; Steinberg 2018b). Absoluteness thus indicates a norm very much
like peace, the cardinal civil norm; so to say that one regime form is
more absolute than another amounts to declaring its superiority.

While Spinoza clearly indicates that aristocracies are, on the whole
and in most cases, superior to monarchies, a more interesting and
somewhat more vexed question is how aristocracies compare with
democracies. Raia Prokhovnik, for example, has claimed that
aristocracy is “the form of government [Spinoza] on mature
reflection prefers” (2004, 210; cf. Feuer 1987 and Melamed 2013). I believe that
there are strong reasons for denying that aristocracy displaces
democracy in the TP as Spinoza’s preferred regime. Spinoza does note
that the election of patricians as opposed to the birthright
privileges of participants in a democracy gives aristocracies an
advantage in theory (11/2). However, this advantage is offset by the
biased, self-serving practices of most patricians (ibid.). And since
Spinoza claims that democracy is the most absolute form of regime
(e.g., 11/1), it would seem that—again, on the whole and in most
cases—Spinoza favors democracy. Ultimately, though, Spinoza is
less interested in rank-ordering regimes than he is in determining how
each regime-type must be organized in order to maximize freedom and
the common good.

4.3.3 Democracy

Spinoza had barely begun writing the first of what would likely have
been two chapters on democracy when he died on February 21, 1677. His
conception of democracy includes any system of popular governance in
which the governing members acquire the right to participate by virtue
of their civil status rather than by election. This conception of
democracy is broad enough to include even variants of timocracy.
Spinoza’s own model democracy excludes all those who are not
sui iuris—e.g., women, servants (servos), and
foreigners—as well those who do not lead “respectable lives”
(honesteque vivunt) (11/3). These elitist and exclusionary
aspects of Spinoza’s democracy taint what would otherwise appear to be
a rather progressive form of democracy, from as much as we can glean
from remarks scattered throughout the text.

The general tenor of Spinoza’s democracy is easy to infer from his
discussions of monarchy and aristocracy, both of which include strong
democratic elements. What is particularly interesting is how Spinoza
defends these democratic features, since this gives us insight into
how democracies are to be defended in general. In the TTP Spinoza seems to
provides both principled and instrumental arguments in favor of
democracy. The principled reason is that democracies preserve men’s
natural equality (TTP 16, 202) and natural freedom (TTP 5/65). The major
instrumental defense of democracy is that “there is less reason
in a democratic state to fear absurd proceedings” (16/184). In
the TP, Spinoza focuses exclusively on the instrumental defense,
highlighting what has recently been called the epistemic advantage of
democracy, i.e., the tendency of popular assemblies to legislate more
wisely than other legislative bodies (e.g., Cohen, 1986; Estlund 1997;
Steinberg 2010a; cf. entry on
democracy.
For instance, he repeats his claim that larger councils are more
likely to be rational because collective decisions force members to
“have as their objective what is honourable, or at least appears
so” (8/6). He claims that the deliberative features of
large governing bodies improve competency, since “men’s wits are
too obtuse to get straight to the heart of every question, but by
discussing, listening to others, and debating, their wits are
sharpened” (9/14). Spinoza also rebuffs those who claim that
there is “no truth or judgment in the common people”
(7/27), claiming that “all men share in one and the same
nature” and that differences in competency stem primarily from
the fact that the masses are kept ignorant of the most important
affairs of the state (ibid.; cf. 7/4). Contrary to Feuer’s suggestion
that events such as the murders of the de Witts led to an
anti-democratic turn in Spinoza’s thought, these passages reveal the
depth of Spinoza’s commitment to democracy and his refusal to endorse
the thesis that some men are innately more fit to govern than
others. So despite the fact that the explicit discussion of democracy
in the TP was largely preempted by the author’s death, this work
remains a significant contribution to democratic theory.

5. The Place of the State in Spinoza’s Ontology

In recent years a lively discussion has emerged in the scholarly
literature concerning whether or not Spinoza’s state is an individual
with its own conatus. At issue in this debate is whether Spinoza was
more of a collectivist or an individualist. The answer to this
question is thought to carry implications for how we conceive of
Spinoza’s relationship to the liberal tradition. Some of the strongest
evidence in support of the conception of the state as an individual
comes from the so-called physical digression between IIP13 and IIP14,
where Spinoza directly discusses individuality. In this section,
Spinoza tells us that an individual is a composite body whose parts
“communicate their motion to each other in a certain fixed
manner” (II/100, A2, def, A3). The parts of an individual may be
replaced, but the individual will persist, provided that the
“same ratio of motion and rest” is retained (ibid., L5,
L4). Moreover, individuals who come together to act in a fixed way
form larger individuals, terminating ultimately in the
supreme-individual: the whole of nature (II/101-102, L7). Elsewhere in
the Ethics, when remarking on the benefits of human
associations, Spinoza claims that “if…two individuals of
entirely the same nature are joined to one another, they compose an
individual twice as powerful as each one” (IVP18S). Here, once
again, Spinoza delineates a picture of composite, higher-order
individuals, opening up the possibility of viewing the state itself as
an individual.

Alexandre Matheron’s Individu et Communauté chez
Spinoza contains perhaps the most influential interpretation of
Spinoza’s account of individuality (1969, esp. Ch. 3). Matheron
identifies political societies as individuals, characterized by their
own “formal element,” i.e., their own unique ratio of
motion and rest (see e.g., p. 42, 58). Following Matheron, Etienne
Balibar views the state as a highly composite individual, as an
“individual of individuals, having a ‘body’
and a ‘soul’ or mind” (1998, 64), a status that he
calls elsewhere “transindividuality” (1997). Others who
have espoused this view include Meinecke (1965) and Blom (2007).

This interpretation has been challenged in a number of ways. One
argument against the view is that in the opening passages of TTP 17
Spinoza, in contrast to Hobbes, claims that individuals always retain a
“considerable part” of their own natural right; in other
words, human beings are never fully integrated into the
super-individual, or state (Den Uyl 1983, 70). The problem with this
objection is that there is no reason to suppose that all individuals
are characterized by complete integration of parts. Matheron, for
instance, describes the state as complex individual whose parts are
only integrated to a limited degree (1969, 58). Balibar, too, claims
that the “autonomy” of individuals is maintained even when
one is a part of a larger collective whole (1997, 21). It is perfectly
consistent to recognize the discrete individuality of humans while
allowing that, under certain conditions of association, individuals can
simultaneously be members of larger units. One can be both
a collectivist and an individualist. The real
anti-individualists are the idealists, who read Spinoza as maintaining
that “human individuality is illusory and untrue” (Joachim
1901, 130).

A second objection to the view that the state is an individual is
that, whereas singular things can only be destroyed by external causes
(IIIP4), “a commonwealth is always in greater danger from its
citizens than from its enemies” (e.g., TP 6/6). If we assume
that all individuals are singular things (for a helpful discussion of
the relationship between these concepts, see D. Garrett 1994), then
the fact that states can ostensibly be destroyed by their parts (i.e.,
citizens) would be a sufficient basis for denying that they are
individuals (Barbone and Rice 2000, 26–7). This is a forceful
objection. However, it seems that an analysis of the apparent
self-destruction of the commonwealth could be provided that parallels
Spinoza’s attempt to explain how suicide is possible in light of the
conatus doctrine (EIVP20S). An apparently self-destructive state could
be regarded as one that is so affected by “hidden external
causes,” so overwhelmed by destructive passions, that it takes
on a new nature that is contrary to its original nature (ibid.).
Specifically, Spinoza could explain cases of apparent civil
self-destruction by maintaining that they occur only at the hands of
poorly-integrated individuals who stand, at least to some degree,
outside of the body politic. While this form of explanation is not
without problems (see Bennett 1984, §56), it is not obvious that
these problems are peculiar to collectivist interpretations of the
state.

A third challenge to the collectivist interpretation is that if the
state is an individual, it should have a mind of its own. But Steven
Barbone points out that references to the mind of the state are
typically preceded by qualifying phrases like veluti
(“as it were”) and
quasi (“as if”), indicating that the state has a
mind only in a metaphorical sort of way (Barbone 2001, pp. 104–105).
This objection might be mitigated by arguing that individuality is
itself a matter of degree and that states are at best
“loose” individuals (Della Rocca 1996, Ch. 2), with limited
cohesion or regularity of action. This is consistent with the claim,
noted above, that integration into a larger union is itself a matter of
degree.

Ultimately, it seems to me that far less hinges on the success or
failure of the collectivist interpretation than has been assumed by
its opponents. The primary concern expressed by critics like Den Uyl
and Barbone seems to be that Spinoza not be understood as treating the
state as an individual with its own interests that might trump the
interests of its constituents. Isaiah Berlin condemned Spinoza along
with other positive liberty theorists precisely because he took
Spinoza to be reifying the state and putting state interests above
individual interests (1969). But even if the state is an individual,
it does not follow that its interests would supersede the interests of
its citizens. Certainly from the perspective of a citizen, there is no
reason why one would have to put the interests of the state above
one’s own interests if these two were genuinely to come into to
conflict. In short, the collectivist can embrace the normative primacy
of the individual human being. If this is allowed, the matter of
whether the state is a literal or merely metaphorical individual seems
to matter far less than many scholars have supposed.

6. The Reception and Influence of Spinoza’s Political Philosophy

In is difficult to assess adequately the scope of influence of
Spinoza’s political thought. Even where Spinoza’s influence
on subsequent political thinkers is direct and indisputable, it is not
always easy to tease out the extent to this influence is due to his own
political philosophy, as opposed to his metaphysics. Further
complicating the assessment is the fact that Spinoza and Spinozism
remained a bugbear throughout Europe for much of the late
17th and 18th centuries, during which time
Spinozism was widely associated with atheism. For this reason, even
sympathetic philosophers often sought to distance their views
from Spinoza’s, positioning themselves as critics or downplaying
familiarity with his texts. Nevertheless, we find traces of the
influence of Spinoza’s political writings throughout the
Enlightenment, along with an array of hostile responses.

The publication of the unfinished TP in Spinoza’s posthumous
Opera was met with relative indifference, upstaged as it was
by the simultaneous appearance of Ethics (Laerke 2010, 122).
However, the TTP was read, discussed, and condemned in the decades
following its publication. The critical reception tended to focus on
the perceived anti-religious features of the work—for instance,
the refutation of miracles and the denial of the divine origin of the
Pentateuch—but the naturalistic account of right and law and the
arguments for the freedom to philosophize also provoked debate.

Jakob Thomasius, Leibniz’s teacher in Leipzig, composed a
work, AdversusAnonymum, de Libertate Philosophandi,
devoted entirely to the refutation of the TTP and its underlying
naturalism. Leibniz too seems to have regarded Spinoza’s views on
right and law as more dangerous even than Hobbes’, for while Hobbes at
least allowed conceptual space for a divine legislator, Spinoza did
not (Laerke 2010, 125). Even relatively liberal natural lawyers like Lambert van Velthuysen
(1622–1685) and Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694), regarded
Spinoza’s treatment of right and obligation as fundamentally
destructive. Velthuysen objects that, without a divine legislator,
there is “no room left for precepts and commandments” (Ep.
42) in Spinoza’s philosophy. And Pufendorf maintains that Spinoza’s
conception of right is defective in that it fails to produce a
“moral effect” or to put others under obligations
(Pufendorf 1934, 391; see Curley 1995).

While Spinoza’s views on right and law were generally met with
contempt, his views on the freedom to philosophize [libertasphilosophandi] provoked a more balanced reaction. The doctrine
had its critics (see e.g., Israel 2010, 81–2), but it also had
its admirers, perhaps including some of the most prominent early-modern
tolerationists. Bayle, Locke, and Toland, for instance, were familiar
with Spinoza’s defense and likely found some inspiration in it,
even while they denied deep acquaintance (Locke) or situated themselves
as critics (Bayle and Toland). Toland’s use in
Pantheisticon of the same epigram from the opening of
Tacitus’ Histories—“rare are the happy times
when we may think what we wish and say what we think [raratemporum felicitas ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere
licet]”– that Spinoza draws from in the title of TTP,
Ch. 20 indicates an affinity between the two thinkers on matters of
freedom of speech and thought (for more on the use of this epigram in
the 17th and 18th centuries, see Paul Russell
2010, Ch. 7),

Later enlightenment thinkers reprise Spinoza’s claim that
whereas the freedoms of thought and expression should be protected, one
ought to obey the sovereign’s decisions on matters of action (TTP
20, 251–2). Echoes of this view may be found in Moses
Mendelssohn’s separation of action and conviction in
Jerusalem (Mendelssohn 1983, 40; Gottlieb 2011, 50), a work
for which one scholar maintains that the TTP “serves, if not as
model, at least as decisive subtext” (Goetschel 2004, 168). This
division was even adopted by Frederick the Great, whose policy that men
may argue about whatever they wish, provided that they obey is famously
celebrated in Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?”
[Was ist Aufklärung?].

Finally, it is worth mentioning Spinoza’s influence on the
democratic thought of the French Enlightenment. Jonathan Israel has
examined the myriad ways in which Spinoza’s philosophy shaped
egalitarian political thought, including, perhaps most significantly,
the political thought of the encyclopédistes (Israel 2011).
Spinoza’s influence here is primarily due to his naturalism,
which inspired the materialist metaphysics that underpinned French
democratic thought, rather than to his political arguments. And
Spinoza’s realist and arguably anti-revolutionary political
method suggests that even if Spinoza’s philosophy influenced
revolutionary democratic thought, it may have had little to do with his
actual political philosophy. (For divergent assessments of
Spinoza’s attitude towards revolution, see Rosenthal 2013 and
Sharp 2013). Nevertheless, one finds more than a whiff of
Spinoza’s absolutist conception of democracy in the accounts of the general will
[volontégénérale] found in
Rousseau (see Ekstein 1944; Williams 2010) and Diderot (Israel
2011).

More recently, Spinoza’s political philosophy has figured
prominently in post-1968 leftist French political thought (for a
survey, see van Bunge 2012). However, in the United States, few
political philosophers have seriously engaged Spinoza’s work,
even while scholarly interest has grown. There is reason to hope,
however, that as Spinoza continues to emerge from Hobbes’ shadow,
political philosophers here may begin to appreciate the rich,
consistent, and resourceful arguments contained in his political
writings.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Note: All English quotations from the TTP are from the Silverthorne
and Israel translation. Citations refer to the chapter, followed by
page number (e.g., TTP 20, 232 refers to chapter 20, page 232). All
references to the TP are to Shirley’s translation. Citations of the TP
refer to the chapters/sections (e.g., 5/4 refers to chapter 5, section
4). All references to the Ethics and to the
Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect are to The
Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. I. ed. and trans. E.M. Curley
(1985). I adopt the following abbreviations for the Ethics:
Roman numerals refer to parts; “P” denotes proposition;
“C” denotes corollary; “D” denotes definition;
“dem.” denotes demonstration; “S” denotes
scholium (e.g., EIIIP59S refers to Ethics, part III,
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